[Editor's Note: In "The Word in Greek Was..." I replied to Turkel's attempt (linked to in the title above) to resolve the discrepancy in the Bible, which claims that "God" both did (1 Kings 8:13) and did not (Acts 7:48) dwell in temples. Turkel has written a "reply" of sorts to this article where, in keeping with his practice of trying to keep the identity of his opponents hidden from his readers, he neither mentioned me by name nor linked his readers to my article. He then proceeded to quote me selectively and indirectly in an addition that he just tacked onto his original article. As this article is being written, he hasn't even updated his "What's Up" page to let his readers know that he has added something onto his article. He doesn't seem to be very proud of his addendum, and we will soon see why.

Those who haven't done so yet, may want to read my original response to Turkel, linked to above, in order to understand exactly what the issue is. My response below begins where Turkel's original article ended. As usual, I will use Turkel and Till as headers so that readers will know who is saying what.]

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Turkel:
Non-scholars [sic] who are ignorant of the principles of language,

Till:
Say what! The irony of ironies is to have Robert Turkel accuse others of being "ignorant of the principles of language." I wouldn't even try to estimate the number of times that I have put [sic] into my replies to him to inform readers that I was quoting his articles as he had written them. He constantly demonstrates that he doesn't know some rather basic principles of English grammar, spelling, syntax, and morphology. The first word in his sentence above, for example, shows that he doesn't understand a simple principle of English morphology, which says that prefixes should be added to root words without hyphenation unless the root word requires capitalization as in "non-English speaking countries." Otherwise, the prefix non- is added to the root without the hyphen as in nonsmoking, noncaloric, nonevasion, nonconformity, nonrestrictive, nondeductible, nonnegotiable and so on. Hence, this principle would require nonscholars to be spelled without the hyphen. Post- is another prefix that Turkel abuses, apparently not knowing that it too should be added to root words without a hyphen, as in postimpression, posthypnotic, postmodern, postmillennial, postresurrection, etc., yet a Google check of Turkel's website will show some 50 articles in which postresurrection was spelled post-resurrection. This is another indication of his ignorance of this basic spelling principle, which applies even when the root begins with a "t" as in posttraumatic. Spellings like reexamine, reentry, reenact, etc. signal to readers that the writer understands the fundamental principle of English spelling that adds prefixes to roots without hyphenation, even if the addition results in a double "e" or double "t" or double "s" or double "n," etc., but in Turkel's articles one will find re-election, re-entering, re-explained, re-evaluation, etc. I have to wonder if he slept through his college English classes (if he took any).

Syntax? Well, the guy doesn't know basic principles of word order, such as where the word only should be put in sentences. There is a difference, for example, in saying, "I only ate a banana," and, "I ate only a banana," and, "I ate the only banana." The first, if interpreted literally, means that I didn't do anything else except eat a banana, the second means that I ate nothing except a banana, and the third means that there was only one banana and I ate it. In Turkel's articles, he often abuses the word only, as many people do in their daily conversations. Here are some examples.

1. "Some have suggested that it only applies to 'blood revenge' killing" instead of "(I)t applies only to 'blood revenge' killing" (In "Thou Shalt Not Kill -- What Does It Mean?").

2. "But beyond this we will only select a few to deal with, pending our challenge for either group to produce pre-Columbian documentation" instead of "(W)e will select only a few" (In "The Quetzalcoatl Question").

3. "This only reports a small and favorable part of George's article..." instead of "This reports only a small and favorable part of George's article" (In "Tempest in a Teapot").

4. "By the data above, self-esteem as a concept has only existed for a very few years..." instead of "(S)elf-esteem as a concept has existed for only a very few years" (In "Self Center").

I could give dozens of other examples, but these are enough to show that even with just one simple English word Turkel has syntactic problems deciding where to put it in sentences.

Punctuation? I won't even talk about that, because it is far worse than his spelling. He almost always uses the British way of punctuating closing quotation marks but will sometimes mix it with the American system, as he did in the paragraph below quoted from "A Genie Gap?" where he tried and failed miserably to resolve the 430-years-in-Egypt discrepancy.

The Exodus 2 phrase (and yea, the very Hebrew word "daughter", [sic] which, like the word for "son," also can carry a broader meaning of "branch" or "company") shows that the word is used to cover gaps in the record.

In putting the comma after the terminal quotation mark enclosing daughter, he used the British system, but then just six words later, he put the comma before the final quotation mark enclosing son. The guy just doesn't have a clue about principles of punctuation in the American system, yet he has the gall to speak about "(n)on-scholars [sic] who are ignorant of the principles of language." Talk about the pot calling the kettle black!

The remark was directed at me, of course, even though he was trying to conceal my identity from his readers, but I will put my knowledge of linguistic principles against his any day. In addition to having a good foundation in English grammar, which I acquired from having taught college English for 30 years, I also studied Greek and Hebrew in college and lived five years in France, where I learned to speak French. The last thing that Turkel can say about me is that I am "ignorant of principles of language." The ignorance is all on his side, especially when he tries to pretend that he is an expert in biblical languages and that the meaning of the original Bible texts cannot be determined by reading translations. I still read the Bible in French sometimes in order to stay brushed up in a language that I haven't spoken to any degree for 30 years, and I very rarely read a verse that doesn't accurately represent what the same verse says in English translations.

Turkel has accused me of linguistic ignorance, so now let's look at the rest of his addendum to the article, which I shot full of holes, and see who the real linguistic ignoramus is.

Turkel:
[Non-scholars [sic] who are ignorant of the principles of language,] or are desperately trying to prop this up as an error, may submit the following:

Till:
Except for the "duhs," I am the one who submitted the following and did so in "The Word in Greek Was...." Those who read it will see how inadequate Turkel's "reply" below is. As usual, he quoted selectively and abbreviated what he did quote, and, of course, he mentioned neither me nor the title of my article. It is his way of duping his readers into believing that he is king of the hill in biblical apologetics, because if his readers don't see what he is replying to, they won't know how much he skips and ignores.

Turkel
"Duh....it's obvious that the two words 'abide' and 'dwell' are used as synonyms in 1 Kings 8:13."

Till:
Actually, in my article, which Turkel, of course neither quoted nor linked his readers to, I pointed out that there were three Hebrew words in the full context of this passage, which were translated dwell, dwell, and abide in the KJV.

Turkel:
That's a very interesting contrivance to pull out of one's nether regions, but the fact is that the words are not synonyms, and that they are used in a poetic parallelism does not make them synonyms either.

Till:
Well, I guess I was wrong, because if Turkel says that they are not synonyms, he must be right. After all, an expert of his stature in biblical languages, customs, traditions, sociology, and everything else about the ancient Near East couldn't be wrong, could he? Just for the heck of it, however, I am going to run by him again the full context of my statement, which he, of course, didn't bother to quote or link his readers to. First, I will quote the disputed text from Turkel's beloved KJV with the Hebrew words for dwell [shâkan], dwell [z^ebûl], and abide [yâshab]inserted.

1 Kings 8:12 Then spake Solomon, Yahweh said that he would dwell in [shâkan] the thick darkness. ¹³ I have surely built thee an house to dwell in [z^ebûl], a settled place for thee to abide in [yâshab] for ever.

Hence, we are not talking about just two words for dwell and abide in the disputed text but three. Turkel conveniently skipped this information in my article, which, as I will keep reminding readers, he didn't bother to link his readers to. Now here is my initial comment about Turkel's application of 1 Kings 8:13.

There are obvious flaws in Turkel's linguistic solution. Let's notice, first of all, that the words dwell and abide are used synonymously in the first text quoted by Turkel: I have surely built thee an house to dwell [z^ebûl] in, a settled place for thee to abide [yâshab] in for ever. Regardless, then, of how infrequently z^ebûl may have been used in the Old Testament, whatever it meant would be what yâshab meant; otherwise, there is no sensible explanation for why z^ebûl and yâshab were used synonymously in the Hebraic parallelism in this verse.

Turkel arbitrarily declared above, without citing any authority in the Hebrew language, that z^ebûl and yâshab are not synonyms. Does he expect us just to accept the mere word of someone who, as I showed above, is linguistically impaired in his native language that these two words were not synonyms? He called their usage above "poetic parallelism," but just what is poetic about the statement? Speaking to Yahweh [snicker, snicker], Solomon allegedly said, "I have surely built thee an house to dwell in [z^ebûl], a settled place for thee to abide in [yâshab] for ever. So where is the poetic structure? Does he think that Solomon went about speaking in poetic verse like a character in a Shakespearean play? And even if the statement were so structured, just why would that keep the two words from being used as synonyms? My goodness, if Turkel is going to declare that Hebrew poetry didn't use parallelism, he is going to destroy a lot of poetry in the Bible. Parallelisms were used throughout the poetic verses of the psalms, and this was achieved by repeating the same synonymous ideas, as in the examples below.

Psalm 2:2 The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against Yahweh, and against his anointed...

I suppose Turkel would argue that the kings setting themselves and the rulers taking counsel together against Yahweh were not repeating the same idea, because, after all, this was a poetic form, and repeating an idea in poetry did not make for synonymous meanings. We have none other than Robert "No Links" Turkel's word for that.

Psalm 9:8 But Yahweh shall endure for ever: he hath prepared his throne for judgment. ⁸ And he shall judge the world in righteousness, he shall minister judgment to the people in uprightness.

I suppose Turkel would say that judging the world in righteousness and ministering judgment to the people in uprightness were not synonymous ideas, because poetic forms did not make ideas synonymous in Hebrew, but just for the novelty of it, let's see if real experts in Hebrew agree with Turkel's claims that the words for dwell and abide in 1 Kings 8:13 were not synonymous. Here is how Brown, Driver, and Briggs defined the word z^ebûl.

exalted, residence, elevation, lofty abode, height, habitation

Here are the five times that it was translated in the KJV.

1 Kings 8:13 I have surely built thee an house to dwell in, a settled place for thee to abide in for ever.

2 Chronicles 6:2 ButI have built an house of habitation for thee, and a place for thy dwelling for ever.

Psalm 49:14 Like sheep they are laid in the grave; death shall feed on them; and the upright shall have dominion over them in the morning; and their beauty shall consume in the grave from their dwelling.

Isaiah 63:15 Look down from heaven, and behold from the habitation of thy holiness and of thy glory: where is thy zeal and thy strength, the sounding of thy bowels and of thy mercies toward me? are they restrained?

Habakkuk 3:11 The sun and moon stood still in their habitation: at the light of thine arrows they went, and at the shining of thy glittering spear.

Readers will want to keep in mind that I said in my reply to Turkel that the words for dwell [z^ebûl] and abide [yâshab] were used synonymously in 1 Kings 8:13, but Turkel, the expert in ancient Near Eastern customs, traditions, sociology, and languages, arbitrarily declared, without offering any evidence except his mere word, that they were not synonyms. Notice, however, that in the rest of the parallel expression ("a settled place for thee to abide in forever,) abide was translated from the Hebrew word yâshab. The parallel account in 2 Chronicles 6:2 translated z^ebûl as "house of habitation," and went on to add that this "house of habitation" would be a "place for [Yahweh] to dwell [yâshab] in forever." The account in 1 Kings 8:13 also said that this would be a "place for [Yahweh] to dwell [yâshab] in forever," so obviously the word yâshab was used in the sense of a permanent dwelling place. When z^ebûl, the word translated dwell is examined in the three other places it was used, we can see that the sense of permanent dwelling was indicated. Psalm 49:14, speaking of those who trust in their wealth, said that they are laid like sheep into their graves, which become their "dwelling [z^ebûl]," where death feeds upon them and consumes their beauty. In other words, when those who trust in riches are laid into their graves, they are there forever. The grave becomes their permanent dwelling place. Surely, Turkel doesn't think that the psalmist was saying that they would be there just temporarily.

The idea of permanence is also in the other two places where z^ebûl was used. Isaiah 63:15, which would be in postexilic Second Isaiah, referred to Yahweh's looking down from heaven, from the "habitation [z^ebûl] of his holiness," which at that time a postexilic writer would have considered heaven to be. Heaven, of course, would not be a place where Yahweh lived just temporarily but would have been his permanent dwelling. Here in his first article on the subject, Turkel said that z^ebûl "simply means 'a place where they are' with no connotations of setting up housekeeping." In other words, he was arguing that the idea of permanence wasn't present in Habakkuk 3:11, which says that "the sun and moon stood still in their habitation," but aren't the sun and the moon always "where they are"? They don't wander around through the universe, going here, then there. Their "habitation [z^ebûl]," then, would be where they always are.

Whether z^ebûl and yâshab were exact synonyms is really immaterial to the meaning of the verse, because "the settled place" that Solomon had built for Yahweh to "abide [yâshab] in forever" was an appositive to "a house to dwell in [z^ebûl]," which Solomon had built for Yahweh. One never knows what Turkel may not know about grammar, so I will explain for his benefit what apposition is in writing. An appositive simply repeats a previously stated idea. If someone wrote, "John Williams, the chief of police, is in the hospital," every native English speaker would recognize that John Williams and chief of police are the same, even though the words John Williams and chief of police are not actually synonyms. In the way they were used in the sentence above, however, John Williams was the chief of police, and the chief of police was John Williams. They are one and the same. If I applied this to houses, the principle of apposition could be illustrated like this: "Jack Brown has built a house on the lake, a place where he can spend his retirement years." The house on the lake and the place where he can spend his retirement years are one and the same, and they were made the same by virtue of putting "a place where he can spend his retirement years" in apposition to "a house on the lake." Now that is simple enough that even the linguistically impaired Robert Turkel should understand it.

In 1 Kings 8:13, the writer put "a settled place for thee [Yahweh] to abide in for ever" in apposition to "a house to dwell in"; hence when Solomon built Yahweh "a house to dwell in," he had built him "a settled place to abide in forever." The grammar of this verse, then, makes dwell [z^ebûl] and abide [yâshab] mean the same thing as they were grammatically structured in this verse. If not, why not? It is Turkel's responsibility to show us why not rather than just tell us that they didn't mean the same thing.

Besides all of this, we have it straight from the horse's mouth that yâshab was the Hebrew equivalent of the Greek word katoikeo, which he claimed here carried connotations of "setting up housekeeping." Having said that, how can he now claim with a straight face that Solomon was not saying in 1 Kings 8:13 that he had built a permanent dwelling place for Yahweh? Of course, I often wonder how Turkel can disclaim with a straight face a lot of things he has previously said, so I don't guess we are seeing anything new from him in this matter. Suffice it to say, however, that when Solomon said that he had built Yahweh "a settled place" where he could "abide forever," the word used here in Hebrew was yâshab, which Turkel himself said corresponded with the Greek word katoikeo that meant permanent residence.

Turkel:
This "answer" merely creates a rule that words used in a poetic-parallel structure are automatically full synonyms, which is nonsense.

Till:
Well, many linguists will argue that there are really no such things as "full synonyms." I don't agree with that completely, but I do think that exact synonyms in English are not as common as some people think. Anyway, as I explained above, the parallel structure of 1 Kings 8:13, which put yâshab in apposition to z^ebûl, made the latter synonymous with the former at least in this case; hence, Solomon was saying in this verse that he had built a permanent residence ["house of habitation"] where Yahweh would have a "settled place" to "abide in forever." If not, why not?"

When Turkel is right, I am more than glad to agree with him, and he was right when he said in his article (linked to above) that yâshab in Hebrew corresponded to the Greek word katoikeo, as used in Matthew 2:23, which says that Joseph took his family and "dwelt [katoikeo] in Nazareth." There are so many examples of this usage of yâshab in the Old Testament that I would need several pages to quote them all, so to avoid any accusation of selective quoting, I will quote just the first ten passages--or as many as there are--in each book in the Pentateuch where yâshab was translated in the KJV with dwell, abide, or inhabit or some of their derivatives. The English words translated from yâshab will be emphasized in bold print.

Genesis 4:16 And Cain went out from the presence of Yahweh, and dwelt in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden.

Genesis 4:20 And Adah bare Jabal: he was the father of such as dwell in tents, and of such as have cattle.

Genesis 11:2 And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they [descendants of Noah after the flood] found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there.

Genesis 11:31 And Terah took Abram his son, and Lot the son of Haran his son's son, and Sarai his daughter in law, his son Abram's wife; and they went forth with them from Ur of the Chaldees, to go into the land of Canaan; and they came unto Haran, and dwelt there.

Genesis 13:5 And Lot also, which went with Abram, had flocks, and herds, and tents. ⁶ And the land was not able to bear them, that they might dwell together: for their substance was great, so that they could not dwell together. ⁷ And there was a strife between the herdmen of Abram's cattle and the herdmen of Lot's cattle: and the Canaanite and the Perizzite dwelled then in the land.

Genesis 13:8 Then Abram removed his tent, and came and dwelt in the plain of Mamre, which is in Hebron, and built there an altar unto Yahweh.

Genesis 14:7 And they returned, and came to Enmishpat, which is Kadesh, and smote all the country of the Amalekites, and also the Amorites, that dwelt in Hazezontamar.

Genesis 14:12 And they took Lot, Abram's brother's son, who dwelt in Sodom, and his goods, and departed.

Genesis 16:3 And Sarai Abram's wife took Hagar her maid the Egyptian, after Abram had dwelt ten years in the land of Canaan, and gave her to her husband Abram to be his wife.

Genesis 19:29 And it came to pass, when God destroyed the cities of the plain, that God remembered Abraham, and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow, when he overthrew the cities in the which Lot dwelt. And Lot went up out of Zoar, and dwelt in the mountain, and his two daughters with him; for he feared to dwell in Zoar: and he dwelt in a cave, he and his two daughters.

In the last text quoted, yâshab was used four times in the obvious sense of living in a place intended to be one's permanent residence. There are 53 other examples of this word in Genesis, and those who bother to check will see that it was consistently used to convey a sense of living in or residing in. The word was used only 22 times in Exodus, but we will see that it consistently conveyed the same meaning there.

Exodus 2:21 And Moses was content to dwell with the man [Reul]: and he gave Moses Zipporah his daughter.

Exodus 12:40 Now the sojourning of the children of Israel, who dwelt in Egypt, was four hundred and thirty years.

Exodus 15:14 The people shall hear, and be afraid: sorrow shall take hold on the inhabitants of Palestina.

Exodus 15:15 Then the dukes of Edom shall be amazed; the mighty men of Moab, trembling shall take hold upon them; all the inhabitants of Canaan shall melt away.

Exodus 15:17 Thou shalt bring them in, and plant them in the mountain of thine inheritance, in the place,O Yahweh, which thou hast made for thee to dwell in, in the Sanctuary,O Yahweh, which thy hands have established.

Exodus 16:29 See, for that Yahweh hath given you the sabbath, therefore he giveth you on the sixth day the bread of two days; abide ye every man in his place, let no man go out of his place on the seventh day.

Exodus 16:35 And the children of Israel did eat manna forty years, until they came to a land inhabited; they did eat manna, until they came unto the borders of the land of Canaan.

Exodus 23:33 They shall not dwell in thy land, lest they make thee sin against me: for if thou serve their gods, it will surely be a snare unto thee.

Three of these passages translated yâshab with inhabited or inhabitants, so wouldn't an inhabitant of a place be someone who lives there permanently?

Leviticus 8:35 Therefore shall ye abide at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation day and night seven days, and keep the charge of Yahweh, that ye die not: for so I am commanded.

Leviticus 13:46 All the days wherein the plague shall be in him he shall be defiled; he is unclean: he shall dwell alone; without the camp shall his habitation be.

Leviticus 18:3 After the doings of the land of Egypt, wherein ye dwelt, shall ye not do: and after the doings of the land of Canaan, whitherI bring you, shall ye not do: neither shall ye walk in their ordinances.

Leviticus 20:22 Ye shall therefore keep all my statutes, and all my judgments, and do them: that the land, whither I bring you to dwell therein, spue you not out.

Leviticus 23:42 Ye shall dwell in booths seven days; all that are Israelites born shall dwell in booths: ⁴³ That your generations may know that I made the children of Israel to dwell in booths, when I brought them out of the land of Egypt:I am Yahweh your God.

Leviticus 25:10 And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof: it shall be a jubilee unto you; and ye shall return every man unto his possession, and ye shall return every man unto his family.

Leviticus 25:18 Wherefore ye shall do my statutes, and keep my judgments, and do them; and ye shall dwell in the land in safety. ¹⁹ And the land shall yield her fruit, and ye shall eat your fill, and dwell therein in safety.

Leviticus 26:5 And your threshing shall reach unto the vintage, and the vintage shall reach unto the sowing time: and ye shall eat your bread to the full, and dwell in your land safely.

Leviticus 26:32 AndI will bring the land into desolation: and your enemies which dwell therein shall be astonished at it.

Leviticus 26:35 As long as it [the land] lieth desolate it shall rest; because it did not rest in your sabbaths, when ye dwelt upon it.

It really isn't necessary to continue this, because the examples quoted above clearly show that yâshab was consistently used in the sense of permanent residence, but when dealing with the likes of Robert Turkel overkill is always necessary, so I will quote examples from the other two books of the Pentateuch.

Numbers 13:18 [Moses speaking to the spies being sent into Canaan], And see the land, what it is; and the people that dwelleth therein, whether they be strong or weak, few or many; ¹⁹ And what the land is that they dwell in, whether it be good or bad; and what cities they be that they dwell in, whether in tents, or in strong holds....

Numbers 13:28 [The spies reporting back], Nevertheless the people be strong that dwell in the land, and the cities are walled, and very great: and moreover we saw the children of Anak there. ²⁹The Amalekites dwell in the land of the south: and the Hittites, and the Jebusites, and the Amorites, dwell in the mountains: and the Canaanites dwell by the sea, and by the coast of Jordan.

Numbers 14:14 And they will tell it to the inhabitants of this land: for they have heard that thou Yahweh art among this people, that thou Yahweh art seen face to face, and that thy cloud standeth over them, and that thou goest before them, by day time in a pillar of a cloud, and in a pillar of fire by night.

Numbers 14:25 (Now the Amalekites and the Canaanites dwelt in the valley.) To morrow turn you, and get you into the wilderness by the way of the Red sea.

Numbers 14:45 Then the Amalekites came down, and the Canaanites which dwelt in that hill, and smote them, and discomfited them, even unto Hormah.

Numbers 20:15 How our fathers went down into Egypt, and we have dwelt in Egypt a long time; and the Egyptians vexed us, and our fathers:

Numbers 21:1 And when king Arad the Canaanite, which dwelt in the south, heard tell that Israel came by the way of the spies; then he fought against Israel, and took some of them prisoners.

Numbers 21:25 And Israel took all these cities: and Israel dwelt in all the cities of the Amorites, in Heshbon, and in all the villages thereof.

Numbers 21:31 Thus Israel dwelt in the land of the Amorites.

Numbers 21:34 And Yahweh said unto Moses, Fear him not: for I have delivered him into thy hand, and all his people, and his land; and thou shalt do to him as thou didst unto Sihon king of the Amorites, which dwelt at Heshbon.

There are some 20 other passages in Numbers where yâshab was used, and those who bother to check those other texts will see that this word was consistently used to convey a sense of permanent residence. Now, finally, we will look at the first 10 examples in the final book of the Pentateuch.

Deuteronomy 1:4 After he [Yahweh] had slain Sihon the king of the Amorites, which dwelt in Heshbon, and Og the king of Bashan, which dwelt at Astaroth in Edrei....

Deuteronomy 1:6 Yahweh our God spake unto us in Horeb, saying, Ye have dwelt long enough in this mount....

Deuteronomy 1:44 And the Amorites, which dwelt in that mountain, came out against you, and chased you, as bees do, and destroyed you in Seir, even unto Hormah.

Deuteronomy 1:46 So ye abode in Kadesh many days, according unto the days that ye abode there.

Deuteronomy 2:4 And command thou the people, saying, Ye are to pass through the coast of your brethren the children of Esau, which dwell in Seir; and they shall be afraid of you: take ye good heed unto yourselves therefore....

Deuteronomy 2:8 And when we passed by from our brethren the children of Esau, which dwelt in Seir, through the way of the plain from Elath, and from Eziongaber, we turned and passed by the way of the wilderness of Moab.

Deuteronomy 2:10 The Emims dwelt therein in times past, a people great, and many, and tall, as the Anakims....

Deuteronomy 2:12 The Horims also dwelt in Seir beforetime; but the children of Esau succeeded them, when they had destroyed them from before them, and dwelt in their stead; as Israel did unto the land of his possession, which Yahweh gave unto them.

Deuteronomy 2:20 (That also was accounted a land of giants: giants dwelt therein in old time; and the Ammonites call them Zamzummims; ²¹ A people great, and many, and tall, as the Anakims; but Yahweh destroyed them before them; and they succeeded them, and dwelt in their stead. ²² As he did to the children of Esau, which dwelt in Seir, when he destroyed the Horims from before them; and they succeeded them, and dwelt in their stead even unto this day: ²³ And the Avims which dwelt in Hazerim, even unto Azzah, the Caphtorims, which came forth out of Caphtor, destroyed them, and dwelt in their stead.)

Deuteronomy 2:28 Thou shalt sell me meat for money, that I may eat; and give me water for money, that I may drink: only I will pass through on my feet; ²⁹(As the children of Esau which dwell in Seir, and the Moabites which dwell in Ar, did unto me;) until I shall pass over Jordan into the land which Yahweh our God giveth us.

So here is a nonselective cross section of Pentateuchal passages where yâshab was used, and they show that it consistently conveyed a sense of permanent residence. Hence, I fully agree with Turkel when he said that yâshab in Hebrew was parallel in its meaning to the Greek word katoikeo, as used in Matthew 2:23, which says that Joseph took his family and "dwelt [katoikeo] in Nazareth." In biblical matters, Turkel isn't right very often, so when he is, he needs to be commended. Now we will see if he will accept the consequences of his own admission and accept the obvious fact that in 1 Kings 8:13, Solomon was saying that he had built a place of permanent residence for his god Yahweh. Somehow, I doubt that he will, for when he said that yâshab was parallel in meaning to katoikeo, he didn't realize the problems that this would cause for his claim that Yahweh did not dwell in temples.

Turkel:
They do have related meanings, of course, and that is all that is needed.

Till:
Yes, and I just showed that the "related meanings" became the same meaning when one of the words was used in apposition to the other. That's a rather simple grammatical principle that even Turkel should understand.

Turkel:
Note that "abide in" is paired, by the way, with "for ever" which should tell anyone with basic literacy that it has a different and more permanent connotation.

Till:
Excuse me, but didn't Turkel just concede defeat here? The fact that "abide in" [yâshab] was used in apposition to "house of habitation" [z^ebûl] had to mean that just as the former was a "settled place" where Solomon thought that Yahweh would abide forever, so the "house of habitation" was also a place where Yahweh, so Solomon thought, would dwell forever. In other words, the pairing of "abide in" with "forever" hurts rather than helps Turkel's case. Or is Turkel somehow unable to see that forever conveys a sense of permanence?

[Addendum 4-29-06: Turkel keeps tacking onto his article comments that I suppose he thinks will save him face without actually trying to reply to my point-by-point rebuttals of his article. The first addition was inserted here. I will present it in red along with my reply and will later switch to red again to show another tacked-on addition to his article and my reply to it.]

Turkel:
Of course, anyone who wishes to simply list verses with each word will have to do some real work and exegete them, not merely list them and posture.

Till:
Say what? Is Turkel actually so hypocritical that he would make such a statement as this? He cites scriptures far more than he quotes them, and when he quotes them, he rarely tries to explicate them. In his original article on this issue, for example, he quoted here the other places in the Old Testament, besides 1 Kings 8:13 and 2 Chronicles 6:2, where the Hebrew word z^ebûl was used, but the only attempt to "exegete" any of these passages was just a brief assertion that he made about Psalm 49:14, where he said, "(T)he word here simply means 'a place where they are' with no connotations of setting up housekeeping." Is that his idea of "exegeting" a text?

I could take the time to take readers to some of his articles to show that he will cite scriptures far more than quote them and that when he does quote them, his efforts at exegesis rarely consist of more than making such comments as, "Keener thinks," or "DeMar says," or "Stuart believes," etc., etc., etc. It is time to remind him again of what Romans 2:21-22 says: (Y)ou then who teach others, will you not teach yourself? While you preach against stealing, do you steal? You who say that one must not commit adultery, do you commit adultery?" To adapt this to Turkel's demand above, I could say, "You who insist that opponents 'exegete' scriptures that they quote, do you 'exegete' scriptures that you quote?" This will all fall on deaf ears in Ocoee, Flordia, of course, because we all know that Turkel considers himself exempt from standards that he demands of others.

I can only surmise that Turkel was directing this comment to the 48 Pentateuchal passages that I quoted above to show that the Hebrew word yâshab was consistently used to convey the idea of permanent residence. In doing this, I made it very clear that the contexts of these passages showed that the word did mean permanent residence; therefore, no exegesis of the passages was necessary. The contexts themselves were all the exegesis needed. I quoted, for example, Genesis 4:16, which says that "Cain went out from the presence of Yahweh and dwelt [yâshab] in the land of Nob." What exegesis was necessary here to show that the obviously intended meaning of this statement was that Cain went to the land of Nod and took up permanent residence there? I also quoted Exodus 2:21, which says that "Moses was content to dwelt [yâshab] with the man," i. e., Ruel, his future father-in-law. What exegesis was necessary to show that this verse obviously meant that Moses took up residence with Ruel? I also quoted... well, why bother to show the obvious? Further comment would merely be a waste of space, because Turkel isn't going to reply to my rebuttal points anyway. The best he can do when his points are soundly rebutted is to rush into his original article and tack on face-saving comments that don't answer anything. I suppose if he met a person who said to him, "I live in Iowa," he would have to have that person "exegete" the statement before he could understand it.

Turkel:
"Duh ah, but Sol says in 1 Kings 8:12 that God said He would 'yashab' forever in the Temple.

Till:
No, Solomon did not say in 1 Kings 8:12 that "God" would yâshab forever in the temple; he said this in 1 Kings 8:13. In 8:12, Solomon said that Yahweh had said that he "would dwell [shâkan] in the thick darkness." I will assume that this was just another mistake that Turkel made in his rush to crank out more hackwork, so I will just go on and reply to his quibble below about what Solomon had really meant.

Turkel:
And David wanted that, too." And of course, it was obviously David and Solomon's earnest hope that God would set up permanent shop in the Temple, but where that little contrivance fails is in that such permanent abiding was contingent upon obedience to the covenant --

Till:
Whose obedience to the covenant? If David's, then that was done, because "David did that which was right in the eyes of Yahweh, and turned not aside from any thing that he commanded him all the days of his life, save only in the matter of Uriah the Hittite" (1 Kings 15:5). Was it this matter of Uriah the Hittite that had caused "that little contrivance to fail"? Or was it Solomon's fall into idolatry that caused it to fail (1 Kings 11:1-11)? This failure-to-obey quibble is the "way out" that biblical inerrantists invariably take to "explain" the failure of prophecies or promises that never materialized after Yahweh had made them, but in the case of dwelling in the temple, where did Yahweh ever say that he would pack up and move out of the temple unless the covenant was kept? The fact is that the original promise to dwell in the temple carried no conditions. I will quote the entire chapter so that I can't be accused of taking anything out of context.

2 Samuel 7:1 And it came to pass, when the king sat in his house, and Yahweh had given him rest round about from all his enemies; ² That the king said unto Nathan the prophet, See now, I dwell in an house of cedar, but the ark of God dwelleth within curtains. ³ And Nathan said to the king, Go, do all that is in thine heart; for Yahweh is with thee. ⁴ And it came to pass that night, that the word of Yahweh came unto Nathan, saying, ⁵ Go and tell my servant David, Thus saith Yahweh, Shalt thou build me an house for me to dwell in? ⁶ Whereas I have not dwelt in any house since the time that I brought up the children of Israel out of Egypt, even to this day, but have walked in a tent and in a tabernacle. ⁷ In all the places wherein I have walked with all the children of Israel spake I a word with any of the tribes of Israel, whom I commanded to feed my people Israel, saying, Why build ye not me an house of cedar? ⁸ Now therefore so shalt thou say unto my servant David, Thus saith Yahweh of hosts, I took thee from the sheepcote, from following the sheep, to be ruler over my people, over Israel: ⁹ And I was with thee whithersoever thou wentest, and have cut off all thine enemies out of thy sight, and have made thee a great name, like unto the name of the great men that are in the earth. ¹⁰ Moreover I will appoint a place for my people Israel, and will plant them, that they may dwell in a place of their own, and move no more; neither shall the children of wickedness afflict them any more, as beforetime, ¹¹ And as since the time that I commanded judges to be over my people Israel, and have caused thee to rest from all thine enemies. Also Yahweh telleth thee that he will make thee an house. ¹² And when thy days be fulfilled, and thou shalt sleep with thy fathers, I will set up thy seed after thee, which shall proceed out of thy bowels, and I will establish his kingdom. ¹³ He shall build an house for my name, and I will stablish the throne of his kingdom for ever. ¹⁴ I will be his father, and he shall be my son. If he commit iniquity, I will chasten him with the rod of men, and with the stripes of the children of men: ¹⁵ But my mercy shall not depart away from him, as I took it from Saul, whom I put away before thee. ¹⁶ And thine house and thy kingdom shall be established for ever before thee: thy throne shall be established for ever. ¹⁷ According to all these words, and according to all this vision, so did Nathan speak unto David. ¹⁸ Then went king David in, and sat before Yahweh, and he said, Who am I, O Lord Yahweh? and what is my house, that thou hast brought me hitherto? ¹⁹ And this was yet a small thing in thy sight, O Lord Yahweh; but thou hast spoken also of thy servant's house for a great while to come. And is this the manner of man, O Lord Yahweh? ²⁰ And what can David say more unto thee? for thou, Lord Jehovah, knowest thy servant. ²¹ For thy word's sake, and according to thine own heart, hast thou done all these great things, to make thy servant know them. ²² Wherefore thou art great, O Jehovah God: for there is none like thee, neither is there any God beside thee, according to all that we have heard with our ears. ²³ And what one nation in the earth is like thy people, even like Israel, whom God went to redeem for a people to himself, and to make him a name, and to do for you great things and terrible, for thy land, before thy people, which thou redeemedst to thee from Egypt, from the nations and their gods? ²⁴ For thou hast confirmed to thyself thy people Israel to be a people unto thee for ever: and thou, Yahweh, art become their God. ²⁵ And now, O Yahweh God, the word that thou hast spoken concerning thy servant, and concerning his house, establish it for ever, and do as thou hast said. ²⁶ And let thy name be magnified for ever, saying, Yahweh of hosts is the God over Israel: and let the house of thy servant David be established before thee. ²⁷ For thou, O Yahweh of hosts, God of Israel, hast revealed to thy servant, saying, I will build thee an house: therefore hath thy servant found in his heart to pray this prayer unto thee. ²⁸ And now, O Lord Yahweh, thou art that God, and thy words be true, and thou hast promised this goodness unto thy servant: ²⁹ Therefore now let it please thee to bless the house of thy servant, that it may continue for ever before thee: for thou, O Lord Yahweh, hast spoken it: and with thy blessing let the house of thy servant be blessed for ever.

Now just where are the conditions in this passage? Perhaps Turkel can point them out to us. As I read the passage, Yahweh did not say that he would dwell in the house that Solomon would build for him only if Solomon were always a good boy. He simply said that Solomon would build the house for him and that in return, he would establish Solomon's throne forever. Yahweh put no conditions on this. He flatly promised to establish Solomon's throne forever, but that promise failed, so the revisionists have been busy for centuries trying to explain that the promise was contingent on Solomon's obedience, even though there is nothing in the text that attached this condition to the promise. When a failed Yahwistic promise is identified, inerrantists will always arrive quickly on the scene to rationalize that its failure was due to disobedience.

They have done this in the case of Yahweh's promise to establish an everlasting Davidic kingdom. In the text quoted above, Yahweh said that David's house and kingdom would be established forever before him and that his throne would be established forever. Just where are the conditions? The fact is that there were no conditions attached. Like the nations around it, the Israelites had an ethnocentric belief that their nation would endure forever, and that view was responsible for the "prophecy," quoted above, that their god would establish the throne of David forever. That promise was repeated several times, as in the example below.

1 Chronicles 22:9 Behold, a son shall be born to thee, who shall be a man of rest; and I will give him rest from all his enemies round about: for his name shall be Solomon, and I will give peace and quietness unto Israel in his days. ¹⁰ He shall build an house for my name; and he shall be my son, and I will be his father; and I will establish the throne of his kingdom over Israel for ever.

Again, there were no conditions attached to this promise. It was a flat-out promise to establish the throne of David's kingdom forever through his son Solomon. Further along in this prophecy, the "prosperity" of David was predicated on his keeping the law of Yahweh his god (vs:12-13), but there was no condition on the promise to establish the kingdom of Israel forever. Yahweh did not say, "I will establish the throne of his kingdom over Israel forever if he toes the line"; he flatly said that he would establish the kingdom forever.

The prophecy failed, of course, and then the rationalization set in. Diehard inerrantists of whom Turkel is just a modern example began to say that only a metaphorical or figurative fulfillment was intended and that this fulfillment was realized in Jesus. That no such figurative fulfillment was intended is evident in many of the passages that predicted the establishment of David's throne forever.

Jeremiah 33:14 Behold, the days come, saith Yahweh, that I will perform that good thing which I have promised unto the house of Israel and to the house of Judah. ¹⁵ In those days, and at that time, will I cause the Branch of righteousness to grow up unto David; and he shall execute judgment and righteousness in the land. ¹⁶ In those days shall Judah be saved, and Jerusalem shall dwell safely: and this is the name wherewith she shall be called, Yahweh our righteousness. ¹⁷ For thus saith Yahweh; David shall never want a man to sit upon the throne of the house of Israel; ¹⁸ Neither shall the priests the Levites want a man before me to offer burnt offerings, and to kindle meat offerings, and to do sacrifice continually.

This prophecy clearly predicted that Judaism would last forever, because it said that just as David would never lack a man sitting on his throne in the house of Israel, there would always be Levitical priests continually offering burnt offerings and other sacrifices to Yahweh. Needless to say, there are no Levitical priests now offering sacrifices and there haven't been for nearly two thousand years, so it is rather difficult to put a metaphorical or figurative spin to the word continually in this prophecy. That the prophecy was speaking about an everlasting earthly kingdom of David is evident from the next four verses.

19 And the word of Yahweh came unto Jeremiah, saying, ²⁰ Thus saith Yahweh; If ye can break my covenant of the day, and my covenant of the night, and that there should not be day and night in their season; ²¹ Then may also my covenant be broken with David my servant, that he should not have a son to reign upon his throne; and with the Levites the priests, my ministers. ²² As the host of heaven cannot be numbered, neither the sand of the sea measured: so will I multiply the seed of David my servant, and the Levites that minister unto me.

Jeremiah said that Yahweh said this, and what Yahweh presumably said was that the everlasting continuation of David's throne was as sure as the natural laws that determined night and day. The one was as sure as the other. Only if one could change Yahweh's laws that made night and day could his promise to continue David's kingdom forever be broken. The idea in the comparison, of course, was that Yahweh's promise to continue David's kingdom was as certain as day and night are certain. The conditional spin that inerrantists try to put on this passage, however, makes Yahweh a liar, because there would be another, simpler way to keep David's descendants off the throne than changing the natural laws governing day and night. One of the descendants could just violate the covenant, and that would do the trick.

Inerrantists will say, of course, that David's throne continues through his descendant Jesus Christ, who now sits on his throne. See how simple it is? It is simple, however, only to those who can't see that the Old Testament very plainly predicted an everlasting Davidic kingdom that would be ruled over not by just one of David's descendants sitting on the throne but by a succesion of many of his "sons."

Psalm 132:11 Yahweh swore to David a sure oath from which he will not turn back: "One of the sons of your body I will set on your throne. ¹² If your sons keep my covenant and my decrees that I shall teach them, their sons also, forevermore, shall sit on your throne."

Inerrantists will claim that this promise was conditional to the obedience of David's sons, but the point is that the promise of an everlasting continuation of David's throne was not that one of his distant "sons" would figuratively sit on his throne but that one of the sons "of [his] body" would be set upon the throne--who, according to other passages, would have been Solomon--and that after this son, there would be other "sons" who would sit on the literal throne forevermore, if they kept Yahweh's covenant and decrees. Inerrantists will argue that failure to keep the covenant nullified this promise, but if the promise was nullified, how could Jesus be sitting on the throne of a kingdom whose everlasting promise had been nullified by disobedient descendants of David? That's a problem that inerrantists apparently never think about, but if the promise was nullified, it was nullified. The fact that they claim that Jesus now sits upon that throne is an admission that they don't really think that the promise was nullified.

This whole controversy is a byproduct of the ethnocentrism of the Israelites. Like people today, who wrap themselves in the flag and constantly chime "God bless America," the Israelites thought that they were so special that their kingdom would last forever, just as the God-bless-America chimers today probably think that this nation will last forever. When all of the talk about an everlasting kingdom of David proved to be incorrect, the revisionists went to work. As I showed here, when the promise of an everlasting Davidic kingdom failed, they fixed the blame for its failure on king Manasseh. Ever since, inerrantists like Turkel have twisted themselves into all sorts of verbal pretzels to rationalize other prophetic failures, so "violation of the covenant" has become a catch-all explanation of just about any prophecy that failed to materialize. That is what Turkel is doing now. David and Solomon expected Yahweh to dwell in the temple forever, but, alas, the covenant was broken, and that dashed all of their hopes to pieces.

Turkel:
but that's not what happened, and his expectation and hope does not equate with the reality, so that by Paul's day it was certainly not in error for him to say that God did not or had not set up permanent shop in any temple.

Till:
See how it works with someone like Turkel, who is bound and determined to make the Bible inerrant? David expected Yahweh to dwell in the temple forever, but, unfortunately, his descendants didn't toe the line, so Yahweh packed up and moved out. As I have already noted, however, there were no conditions at all attached to Yahweh's original promise to dwell in the house that he designated Solomon to build for him. He flatly said that the temple would be a house for him to dwell in and that, in return, he would establish Solomon's kingdom forever.

Why the apostle Paul disagreed with the idea of Yahweh's dwelling in the temple was nothing more than a simple matter of theistic evolution. First, there were many gods--even in the Hebrew culture--but then there evolved a my-god-can-lick-your-god belief or, in other words, henotheism. Likewise, as I showed here, there was once an anthropomorphic view of the gods, which led their worshipers to believe that they lived in the temples that had been built for them, but over time, a more spiritual view of "God" evolved, which put him "up there" somewhere away from the earthly scene. By Paul's time, this view had won a wider acceptance, so, unlike David and Solomon, he didn't believe that "God" lived in temples "made by hands." This is an explanation that fits Occam's razor much better than Turkel's well-alas-the-covenant-was-broken-and-so-God-packed-up-and- moved-out "explanation."

Turkel:
For Paul, Jerusalem was a city under judgment -- and there was no presence of God in the Temple to speak of, and probably had not been, in his view, since at least the time when the Romans invaded and parked their little tootsies in the Temple.

Till:
It's hard to know what Turkel meant here. Did he mean that the Romans had "parked their little tootsies in the temple" when they occupied the Levant, or did he mean that they had desecrated the temple in AD 70--a date important to his silly preterist views? If the latter, then Turkel has apparently forgotten that the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple had happened long after Paul had said that "God" didn't dwell in temples made by hands (Acts 17:24), but it isn't at all unusual for Turkel to be chronologically confused.

If Turkel meant that "there was no presence of God in the Temple to speak of"--a rather vague qualifier--from the time that the Romans had occupied Jerusalem and the Levant, then I have to wonder why "God" didn't move out of the temple when it was desecrated by Antiochus Epiphanes. As I showed here in "Turkel Rides--Er--Stumbles Again 1-B," Antiochus and his Seleucid forces thoroughly desecrated the temple centuries before the Romans occupied Jerusalem, so was there any presence of "God" in the temple, "to speak of," after this, or did "God" pack up and leave then too, only to decide later that he would move back in and give his on-again-off-again "chosen ones" another chance? Inquiring minds want to know, and Turkel seems to have all of the answers.

Turkel:
A little contextual study goes a long way to understanding what is written.

Till:
Yes, it does, so it is a pity that Turkel so often seems to be thoroughly impaired contextually, but, of course, one has to know what is in the Bible before he can understand whether the positions he takes are in full agreement with the entire Bible. That deficiency often gets Turkel into trouble.

Turkel:
Of course, only a person with serious problems with "fundy atheism" would ignore the contextual reality of the contingent nature of covenants in the ANE.

Till:
Oh, dear, I keep forgetting that Turkel, who can't properly punctuate an English sentence that has any degree of complexity to it, is an expert in the customs, traditions, sociology, and languages of the ancient Near East. When will I ever learn!

Turkel:
There's a big difference between "what I want" and "what you get" -- a lesson fundy atheists don't ever seem to learn.

Till:
Well, here is a lesson that Turkel sorely needs to learn: ancient writers quite naturally reflected in their documents the beliefs of their times. When people generally believed that the earth was flat, writers reflected a flat-earth view. When people believed that diseases were caused by demons, writers reflected that view. When people believed that good fortune came from having pleased the gods, writers reflected that view. When people believed that calamities resulted from having displeased the gods, writers reflected that view, and so on ad infinitum. Therefore, when Turkel says things like "the contingent nature of covenants in the ancient Near East" determined what biblical writers would say, he is, in effect, admitting that there is nothing at all special about the Bible, because those who wrote it simply reflected the beliefs of the times. We constantly see him trying to explain discrepancies by attributing them to variations in "oral tradition," as he did here and other places I could link to, or explaining perceived "gaps" in genealogies by saying that the Hebrew writers had to keep track of lineages as best they could but when they were being forced by oppressors to make bricks, "such [were] the breaks," or when he says that the Bible was inspired in the same sense that "a work of art" is inspired, he strips the Bible of any claims to special importance, because this view of it merely reduces it to the status of another collection of writings among millions of other collections written by people who said what the beliefs of their times influenced them to say.

Why Turkel can't realize this doesn't speak too well for his critical thinking skills. I have read in his articles indications that he believes in prophecy fulfillment, but with his view of biblical inspiration, he would be hard pressed to explain how prophets could have possibly known what lay in the future. After all, if biblical writers put gaps into genealogies because they could only do the best they could with information available to them while they were being oppressed to make bricks, how did prophets beset by problems contemporary to their times know what was going to happen in the future? If one believes that biblical prophets could see into the future--and I certainly don't believe they could--how could he possibly explain their having such insights except by claiming that the future had been divinely revealed to them? Those who wrote the genealogies that, according to Turkel, had "gaps" in them did the best they could under the circumstances oppressing them, but the apostle Paul said that the gospel that he had preached to the Galatians had been revealed to him by Jesus Christ (Gal. 1:12). God sort of played favorites, didn't he?

Until Turkel can see the logical requirements of believing that the Bible is "God's word," he has no room to talk about lessons that "fundy atheists" need to learn.

Turkel:
"Duh, yeah, but in 1 Samuel, 2 Samuel, etc. it says God 'yashabed' between the cherubim." Yes, and what? That's not the Temple. It's the Ark of the Covenant....

Till:
Turkel apparently can't see the forest because of the trees. The tabernacle was very likely a retrojection of the temple, put into the exodus and wilderness-wandering stories when Israelite history was being ficionalized well after the time of the alleged exodus, wilderness wanderings, and conquest of Canaan. When the Israelites were migratory, the tabernacle was where Yahweh would meet Moses and [snicker, snicker] speak to him.

Exodus 33:7 Now Moses used to take the tent [tabernacle] and pitch it outside the camp, far off from the camp; he called it the tent of meeting. And everyone who sought Yahweh would go out to the tent of meeting, which was outside the camp. ⁸ Whenever Moses went out to the tent, all the people would rise and stand, each of them, at the entrance of their tents and watch Moses until he had gone into the tent. ⁹ When Moses entered the tent, the pillar of cloud would descend and stand at the entrance of the tent, and Yahweh would speak with Moses. ¹⁰ When all the people saw the pillar of cloud standing at the entrance of the tent, all the people would rise and bow down, all of them, at the entrance of their tent. ¹¹ Thus Yahweh used to speak to Moses face to face, as one speaks to a friend. Then he would return to the camp; but his young assistant, Joshua son of Nun, would not leave the tent.

This passage clearly indicates that the Hebrews considered the tabernacle to be a place where one could speak to Yahweh face to face. Yes, Turkel may complain, but on those occasions, Yahweh would "come down" to talk to Moses; it doesn't say that he lived in the tabernacle. That is true, but there are the texts, which Turkel alluded to in his last sarcastic comment above, that clearly say that Yahweh resided between the cherubims on the ark of the covenant, but I will say more about that further down when I shove Turkel's foot farther down his throat when he says that the ark of the covenant wasn't glued to the floor of the temple.

Those who want to see more about the view of those scholars who think that the tabernacle was a fictionalized retrojection of the temple should read "The Divine Warrior in His Tent: A Military Model for Yahweh’s Tabernacle" by Michael M. Homan in the Online Archive of Biblical Archaeology Society. On the basis of what he has said in the past about "scholars," Turkel will have to respect Homan's opinion, because he has a Ph.D. in ancient history and the Hebrew Bible, and he is presently on fellowship with the W. F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research in Jerusalem. Turkel can't accuse someone with those credentials of being a "fundy atheist" who needs to bone up on the sociology and customs of the ancient Near East.

Turkel:
[That's not the Temple. It's the Ark of the Covenant,] which wasn't glued to the Temple floor.

Till:
I love it when Turkel's biblical ignorance shines brighter than the sun at high noon on a clear day. Apparently this fellow who considers himself a crackerjack apologist doesn't know that the Bible claims that Solomon put the ark into the temple after it was completed. The ironic thing about it is that the verses that immediately preceded 1 Kings 8:13--which Turkel himself introduced into this controversy when he presumed to explain that the Bible doesn't contradict itself on whether "God" dwells in temples--tell of the transportation of the ark into the temple at the time of its dedication.

1 Kings 8:1 Then Solomon assembled the elders of Israel and all the heads of the tribes, the leaders of the ancestral houses of the Israelites, before King Solomon in Jerusalem, to bring up the ark of the covenant of Yahweh out of the city of David, which is Zion. ² All the people of Israel assembled to King Solomon at the festival in the month Ethanim, which is the seventh month. ³ And all the elders of Israel came, and the priests carried the ark. ⁴ So they brought up the ark of Yahweh, the tent of meeting, and all the holy vessels that were in the tent; the priests and the Levites brought them up. ⁵ King Solomon and all the congregation of Israel, who had assembled before him, were with him before the ark, sacrificing so many sheep and oxen that they could not be counted or numbered. ⁶ Then the priests brought the ark of the covenant of Yahweh to its place, in the inner sanctuary of the house, in the most holy place, underneath the wings of the cherubim. ⁷ For the cherubim spread out their wings over the place of the ark, so that the cherubim made a covering above the ark and its poles. ⁸ The poles were so long that the ends of the poles were seen from the holy place in front of the inner sanctuary; but they could not be seen from outside; they are there to this day. ⁹ There was nothing in the ark except the two tablets of stone that Moses had placed there at Horeb, where Yahweh made a covenant with the Israelites, when they came out of the land of Egypt. ¹⁰ And when the priests came out of the holy place, a cloud filled the house of Yahweh, ¹¹ so that the priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud; for the glory of Yahweh filled the house of Yahweh.

Notice that verse 8 said that the poles that were on the ark "are there to this day." If the poles were there to this day, we can reasonably assume that the ark was there too. Solomon began work on the temple in the second month of the fourth year of his reign (1 Kings 6:1), and it was completed in his 11th year (1 Kings 6:37-38). Solomon's reign has been dated from 970 to 930 BC, so the temple would have been completed around 959 BC. Since 2 Kings mentions Nebuchadnezzar's destruction of Jerusalem in 597 BC, we can assume that the writer(s) of Kings didn't finish this work before then. Hence, if the ark remained in the temple "to this day," it had become a regular fixture in the temple, even though it may not have been glued to the floor. The presence of the ark in the most holy place, then, where Yahweh spoke [snicker, snicker] from between the cherubims, may have been why Solomon thought that the temple would be a "settled place" where Yahweh would "abide forever.

The chronicler claimed that the ark was still in the temple as late as the reign of Josiah.

2 Chronicles 35:1 Josiah kept a passover to Yahweh in Jerusalem; they slaughtered the passover lamb on the fourteenth day of the first month. ² He appointed the priests to their offices and encouraged them in the service of the house of Yahweh. ³ He said to the Levites who taught all Israel and who were holy to Yahweh, "Put the holy ark in the house that Solomon son of David, king of Israel, built; you need no longer carry it on your shoulders. Now serve Yahweh your God and his people Israel.

Josiah, one of the last of the Judean kings, reigned until 609 BC, just 11 years before Nebuchadnezzar took Jerusalem. Eleven years later, Nebuchadnezzar returned and burned the temple (2 Kings 25:8-9). On his first conquest, he sacked the temple and took "all treasures" in it to Babylon (2 Kings 24:13). Since the ark was allegedly overlaid with "pure gold" and the mercy-seat and the cherubims hovering over it were also made of pure gold (Ex. 37:1-9), we could assume that if the verse just cited is realiable, the ark itself was included in the "treasures" taken to Babylon. This verse also claimed that Nebuchadnezzar cut to pieces all the vessels of gold that Solomon had made for the temple, so if these items were so destroyed, possibly the ark was too. At any rate, biblical records claim that the ark was in the most holy place in the temple from around 959 BC to 597 BC. That would have been 362 years or more than a century longer than the United States has existed as an independent nation, so even if the ark wasn't glued to the floor of the temple, it had become a permanent fixture in it. Therefore, if Yahweh did reside between the wings of the cherubims (1 Samuel 4:3; 2 Samuel 6:2; 1 Chron. 13:6; 2 Kings 19:15; Isaiah 37:16; Ps. 99:1), then he did indeed dwell in the temple until Nebuchadnezzar sacked it. Jesus, however, thought that even after the first temple was destroyed and the ark lost, "God" still dwelt in the temple (Matt. 23:21), so Turkel finds himself in the precarious position of arguing that his omniscient "savior" didn't know what he was talking about.

Turkel:
C'mon, pay attention, please.

Till:
If anyone needs to pay attention, that would obviously be Robert "No Links" Turkel.

Turkel:
Excuses like "the ark is a retrojection of the Temple, duh ah" just make one look desperate and foolish.

Till:
I didn't say that the ark was a retrojection of the temple. I said that the tabernacle was. C'mon, Bobby, pay attention, please. Anyway, I suppose everyone noticed that Turkel made no attempt to reply to my link above to an article by Michael M. Homan in the Online Archive of Biblical Archaeology Society, which provided scholarly information about the reasons why many other scholars think that the tabernacle was a retrojection of the temple. In that same paragraph, I said the following about past comments that Turkel has made about the need to respect the views of those who have Ph. D. degrees in their fields.

On the basis of what he has said in the past about "scholars," Turkel will have to respect Homan's opinion, because he has a Ph.D. in ancient history and the Hebrew Bible, and he is presently on fellowship with the W. F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research in Jerusalem. Turkel can't accuse someone with those credentials of being a "fundy atheist" who needs to bone up on the sociology and customs of the ancient Near East.

Readers can go here in "The Zigzagging Stripes of Bobby Turkel" to see where he claimed that a scholar he had quoted was reliable, because he had a Ph. D. in his field. He also implied here that opinions he was going to quote on the subject of evolution were dependable, because he had "asked a Ph.D. scientist from Answers in Genesis for comment." I suppose that we can conclude from this that Turkel sees Ph. D. degrees as evidence of scholarship as long as those who have them agree with him. If they don't agree with him, their Ph. D.'s don't mean anything.

Anyone who would see a Ph. D. "scientist" at Answers in Genesis, where the agenda of staff members is always to defend biblical inerrancy, more reliable than a person with a Ph. D. on the staff of the W. F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research in Jerusalem is really the one whose judgment is clouded. I would say, then, that the only desperation and foolishness in this matter is coming from Ocoee, Florida. If Turkel really wants to show us that seeing the tabernacle as a retrojection of the temple is desperation and foolishness, he should, without resorting to argumentation by assertion, question begging, or special pleading, give us conclusive evidence that the tabernacle, as described in Exodus, was undeniably constructed by the Hebrews while they were in the wilderness of Sinai.

Don't expect to see him do this any time soon.

Turkel:
"Duh ah, Sol clearly thought that he was building a 'settled place' for Yahweh to dwell, so until the completion of the temple, Solomon apparently thought that Yahweh's 'settled place' was in heaven but would thereafter be in the temple." Someone who says this clearly needs help with the ANE concept of a hypostatic entity. They might try this for starters.

Till:
Hypostasis is a speculative theological theory of "the nature of God," which theologians have used as the basis for such silly doctrines as his triune nature. He is God the father, but he is also God the son and even God the Holy Spirit. Hypostatic theory supposes that these three are separate "persons" but still just one God. This theory also supposes that Jesus was also wholly God and wholly man. None of this is verifiable, of course, but whenever I hear such silliness as the claim that Jesus was wholly God but also wholly man, I think about my favorite shirt, which is wholly cotton but wholly wool. Think about it for a moment. If such an entity as "God" actually exists, could he do that which is logically impossible? After considering this question, then ask yourself if it would be logically possible even for an omniscient, omnipotent entity to be wholly one--well, what is the word? Substance? Yeah, I will use that. Would it be logically possible even for an omniscient, omnipotent entity to be wholly or entirely one substance but at the same time wholly or entirely another substance?

This, folks, is the kind of nonsense that Turkel is trying to merchandise.

Turkel:
By means of a hypostasis, a deity was able to reside in heaven but also dwell (to whatever extent) on earth.

Till:
Turkel just can't seem to see when he is defeating his own purpose. If a deity was able to reside in heaven but also dwell on earth, then "God" could have dwelt in the temple, just as Jesus said, couldn't he have?

Turkel:
"Doh, um, but Matt. 23:21 uses, duh, 'katoikonti'. [sic] It says, 'Whoso therefore shall swear by the altar, sweareth by it, and by all things thereon. And whoso shall swear by the temple, sweareth by it, and by him that dwelleth [katoikonti] therein.' That, duh, shows that Jesus thought God resided in the Temple permanent-like." You don't say. Sorry, but no. This is where serious historical study again aids the uneducated.

Till:
Well, it is time to look again at what Turkel himself said in his article, where he thought that he was resolving a contradiction between 1 Kings 8:13 and Acts 7:48.

The last cite [sic] tells us that the word [z^ebûl] here simply means "a place where they are" with no connotations of setting up housekeeping (versus the NT word katoikeo, which is used in verses like this: "And he came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth". [sic] There is another Hebrew word for this, yashab.) Correspondingly this would simply refer to a place where a deity could make contact and communicate its will; for the pagans that would have been an image of some sort, but for Yahweh that would be the Temple in Jerusalem.

Turkel clearly said here that yashab was the Hebrew word for katoikeo in Greek, which was used to convey permanent residence as in the case of where the New Testament says that Joseph took his family and dwelt [katoikeo] in Nazareth. If katoikeo corresponded to yashab in Hebrew and if Solomon said that the temple would be a "settled place" for Yahweh to abide in [yashab] forever and if Jesus said that God dwelt [katoikeo] in the temple, then both Solomon and Jesus said that God dwelt in the temple in the same sense that Joseph and his family dwelt in Nazareth. This is a necessary conclusion of Turkel's own premises, and he can't "duh" his way out of that conclusion.

C'mon, Bobby, pay attention, please. The word in Hebrew was yashab, which according to you, corresponded to katoikeo.

Turkel:
Keep in mind that this was the very Temple that Jesus cleansed as a prophetic demonstration indicating that it was not the dwelling place of God, but had been abandoned by God because of the sin of Israel.

Till:
Oh, is that so? Then did "God" abandon the temple the many times before this when it had been desecrated by kings who used it for idolatrous purposes?

1. King Ahaz was so impressed with an altar that he had seen in Damascus that he had a replica built in the temple at Jerusalem and offered sacrifices on it (2 Kings 16:10-16).

2. King Manasseh built pagan altars to "all the host of heaven," made graven images, and put them in the temple (2 Kings 21:4-7).

3. During the reformation of King Josiah, he cleared from the temple the Asherah (2 Kings 23:6), horses that the kings of Judah had dedicated to the sun (v:11), and the altars built in the temple court by Manasseh (v:12).

If Jesus's cleansing of the temple meant that it had been abandoned by God, would Josiah's cleansing of it mean that it had been abandoned at that time too? If so, exactly when did God move back into the temple? Furthermore, if the descriptions above are accurate, then the temple had been desecrated throughout the reigns of the kings of Israel and Judah, yet, as also noted above, biblical writers claimed that Yahweh dwelt between the cherubim on the ark of the covenant, which was put into the temple when Solomon dedicated it.

C'mon, Bobby, pay attention, please.

Turkel:
With that in mind, Matt. 23:21 -- which is part of an invective against the Pharisees and what they did and believed -- represents nothing more than a case of Jesus granting a premise that the Pharisees accepted (God did dwell in the Temple at that time) in order to denounce them for their behavior in using the Temple as a swear word.

Till:
And Turkel's proof that Jesus was just "granting a premise that the Pharisees accepted"? He didn't give any. In typical fashion, he just made an assertion and hurried on.

An examination of the broader context in which Jesus said that God dwelt in the temple is not at all friendly to Turkel's assertion that Jesus was just granting the Pharisees a premise that they accepted. This statement was made in a context where Jesus seemed to be doing everything but granting premises to and coddling the Pharisees. A look at the entire chapter will show how unlikely Turkel's assertion is. I will emphasize in bold print all of the negative comments that Jesus hurled at the Pharisees.

Matthew 23:1 Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples, ² "The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses' seat; 3 therefore, do whatever they teach you and follow it; but do not do as they do, for they do not practice what they teach. ⁴ They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on the shoulders of others; but they themselves are unwilling to lift a finger to move them. ⁵ They do all their deeds to be seen by others; for they make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long. ⁶ They love to have the place of honor at banquets and the best seats in the synagogues, ⁷ and to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces, and to have people call them rabbi. ⁸ But you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher, and you are all students. ⁹ And call no one your father on earth, for you have one Father--the one in heaven. ¹⁰ Nor are you to be called instructors, for you have one instructor, the Messiah. ¹¹ The greatest among you will be your servant. ¹² All who exalt themselves will be humbled, and all who humble themselves will be exalted. ¹³ "But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you lock people out of the kingdom of heaven. For you do not go in yourselves, and when others are going in, you stop them. [¹⁴ Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye devour widows' houses, and for a pretence make long prayer: therefore ye shall receive the greater damnation.] ¹⁵ Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you cross sea and land to make a single convert, and you make the new convert twice as much a child of hell as yourselves. ¹⁶ "Woe to you, blind guides, who say, 'Whoever swears by the sanctuary is bound by nothing, but whoever swears by the gold of the sanctuary is bound by the oath.' ¹⁷ You blind fools! For which is greater, the gold or the sanctuary that has made the gold sacred? ¹⁸ And you say, 'Whoever swears by the altar is bound by nothing, but whoever swears by the gift that is on the altar is bound by the oath.' ¹⁹ How blind you are! For which is greater, the gift or the altar that makes the gift sacred? ²⁰ So whoever swears by the altar, swears by it and by everything on it; ²¹ and whoever swears by the sanctuary, swears by it and by the one who dwells in it; ²² and whoever swears by heaven, swears by the throne of God and by the one who is seated upon it. ²³ "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint, dill, and cummin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. It is these you ought to have practiced without neglecting the others. ²⁴ You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel! ²⁵ "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and of the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. ²⁶ You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup, so that the outside also may become clean. ²⁷ "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which on the outside look beautiful, but inside they are full of the bones of the dead and of all kinds of filth. ²⁸ So you also on the outside look righteous to others, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness. ²⁹ "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you build the tombs of the prophets and decorate the graves of the righteous, ³⁰ and you say, 'If we had lived in the days of our ancestors, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.' ³¹ Thus you testify against yourselves that you are descendants of those who murdered the prophets. ³² Fill up, then, the measure of your ancestors. ³³ You snakes, you brood of vipers! How can you escape being sentenced to hell? ³⁴ Therefore I send you prophets, sages, and scribes, some of whom you will kill and crucify, and some you will flog in your synagogues and pursue from town to town, ³⁵ so that upon you may come all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah son of Barachiah, whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar. ³⁶ Truly I tell you, all this will come upon this generation. ³⁷ "Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! ³⁸ See, your house is left to you, desolate. ³⁹ For I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, 'Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.'"

When I read this, I see nothing that even remotely justifies Turkel's claim that Jesus was just granting to the Pharisees a premise that they accepted. This passage contains one of the strongest denunciations of hypocrisy in the entire Bible, and it was all aimed at the Pharisees.

C'mon, Bobby, pay attention, please.

Turkel:
Nice try, but it's time to do more than open that Bible and announce your opinion.

Till:
I think it is obvious that Turkel doesn't even open the Bible before he announces his opinions. If he did open the Bible more than just five minutes a day, maybe he wouldn't find his opinions so often in conflict with what the Bible plainly says.

C'mon, Bobby, pay attention, please.
 

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